Hiding in Plain Sight: Youth Mental Illness (2022) s01e02 Episode Script

1
[Wind whistling]
♪
♪
♪
Man: My wife
found us a psychiatrist
who was willing to take us.
The doctor--he meant this
in a kind way--he said,
"Look, I'm gonna be
real with you.
"Your son has
an incurable disease.
"He will never get better.
"He will have to
take medications
"that will make him gain
30, 40, 50 pounds.
"He will be suspect
to diabetes.
"It's unlikely that he will
ever be able to hold a job,
"he'll ever marry, have kids,
"and there's a high chance
that he may have
"an encounter with police
and be arrested.
"May become homeless.
These are serious things.
"And, oh, by the way,
people die 15 years earlier
who have mental illness
than the rest of us."
And I remember
being devastated,
and we left and I was
talking to Kevin,
and when I mentioned
those things to him,
he goes,
"Dad, that guy's crazy."
♪
It's a strange thing
to look back on
and think to myself,
I really didn't care about
anything at that point,
not caring if I wake up.
That moment that
nothing else mattered to me,
that I just threw myself
in front of a moving car?
I felt nothing.
I actually was, like,
really scared.
And I went downstairs crying
and I told my mom what I did,
and then she brought me
to the hospital.
I still had a whole
future that I had planned.
I was planning this suicide
but at the same time,
you know, I was making plans
to, like, go out to the movies
with my friends the next week.
I asked my parents,
"What would happen
if I wasn't here?"
And I think that
got them pretty worried.
My mom having an addiction
herself, I hated her
even though I was emulating
her behavior at the same time.
Vinson: Rock bottom
looks different
for different people.
It's being able to identify
that time or that instant
where what mattered most to them
felt the most threatened.
For some people, that may be
their relationships
with their parents,
it may be their grades, it may
be their sports identity,
it may be their life.
Some people end up
staying at that bottom
for a really long time,
and some people
never get past it.
Woman on video: Mental health is
an issue. It concerns all of us.
Man on video: One in 6
young people experience
a mental health
Woman: million U.S. adults
experience mental illness in
Man on video: disorders
are still common.
Second man on video: of
Americans think there's
a lot of stigma
against people.
Third man on video: Suicide rate
for adolescents ages 10 to 14
has nearly tripled
in the last decade.
Samantha: I really want to live,
and I'm trying
to make the effort
and I want to have a good life,
maybe one, two kids,
not the white picket fence
but something that's livable--
not this--but I want it.
And I just want normal
and mundane and average.
Maybe a trip to
Myrtle Beach every summer.
You know, I don't care.
I just, I'm sick of
crazy, chaotic,
up and downmess.
Narrator: A mental health
crisis can arrive
without warning
or develop over time.
It may be triggered
by nurture or nature,
through lived experience
or genetics, or both.
It often occurs before
the age of 25,
and it can happen to anyone:
a young woman
who self-medicates
and engages in
reckless behavior;
a teenager, who,
despite her happy childhood,
surrenders to addiction;
a Native American
who feels so isolated
she contemplates suicide;
a college art student who slips
into delusional episodes;
a high school freshman whose
childhood hallucinations
intensify after
a series of assaults;
a boy who is plagued
by intrusive thoughts
withdraws into his own world;
a transgender teen who
goes through periods of
profound joylessness
and substance abuse;
and a healthy, everyday kid
who suddenly
experiences what
his friends call
"an emotional heart attack."
♪
Pete: And then the reality hits,
and it's your kid.
It's your kid
who's hearing voices.
And it's your kid
who's screaming
and it's your kid who's crying
and [clears throat]
all of a sudden
you are in a position
where you have to deal with it,
and it's like the difference
between, you know,
watching a war movie
or a Vietnam movie
and being in the jungle
having someone shoot at you.
Narrator: Every year,
millions of kids
drop out of school,
experience homelessness,
or find themselves in jail
because they didn't get
the help they needed.
Help is available--
from a parent, family doctor,
school counselor, or even
a trusted friend.
♪
For many who have suffered
silently, simply reaching out
may be the most
intimidating step of all.
[Thunder]
But the relief can be
as indescribable
as the pain once was.
Justin: It's like
a perfect storm.
It's this powerful,
you know, hurricane.
It gets intense.
It gets intense.
But, you know,
after that storm passes
are some of the most beautiful
sunny days you've ever seen.
You hear the first birds
start chirping,
and you look and the sun
cracks through the clouds.
Everybody kind of just
creeps out of their houses,
see how everything's going.
"You got power?"
"You hungry?"
I see the silver lining in that
and it's a beautiful thing.
♪
Yanerry: It was one year
I was depressed,
and it became two and then
it became 3 and eventually 7.
I kind of felt like
God was punishing me,
but after a while,
I kind of realized
this is just something
that not only I have,
but other people
have it, you know?
While some people
may look at it as crazy,
it's crazy to you
but it's normal to me.
I'm not crazy.
♪
Boy: I came to live here,
like, two or one and a half.
I don't remember anything from
the past of that, but, um
let me think, um
I cannot think right now.
Woman on video: Hey, Gabe.
Woman:
Gabe and Sasha, uh, they had
a pretty tough life,
they really did.
♪
Just, you know, how young
it does actually start.
How in utero,
the baby's even affected.
If there's a lot of,
like, domestic violence
and stuff the mother
goes through,
you know, how that
affects the baby.
When I'm mad on the outside,
I'm mad on the inside.
Teachers say,
"What is wrong with you?"
and then I just start
breaking down like,
"I don't want to talk about it."
Darla on video: Tell Mom
where you're going.
Darla: I was working
with the children.
They had some
developmental delays,
and so, I had been
introduced to the family
and was working
with Gabe
but had no idea
that we would
soon have them
in foster care
and eventually
adopt the children.
When I got really mad,
it was mostly--
mostly I used to scream
and slam my door,
make pictures
fall off the wall.
Man: He would go into a rage
that it was like
an out-of-body
experience for him.
Gabe: I--yeah, just throw
stuff at 'em, hit 'em.
Darla: He hit
other children a lot.
Sasha, you know.
Ray: I would physically
have to hold him down.
And then he would
come back out of the fog
and he would be normal.
You think you can
love it out of them.
That will fix it.
No, it doesn't.
Man: My thing
as a father, I was like,
I gotta fix it.
I mean, I gotta fix
everything,
because what's gonna
happen if I don't fix it?
Dunning: Parents are doing
the best they can,
They just don't
know how sometimes.
When parents bring
a child to me,
they will oftentimes say,
"I want you to fix my kid."
I will say, "How do you know
your child's broken?"
Woman: We had no idea what
we were supposed to do.
We took him to
the emergency room.
And it was terrible.
Even just uttering the words
to the front desk people,
like, you know,
we're here with Maclayn
and he's having thoughts
of ending his life.
They take all of
his clothes off
and they put on
this, um, onesie,
so that they can't
hurt themselves, um,
and it was
hours and hours.
Vinson: Most often,
emergency rooms are not set up
to deal with
mental health problems.
But you have
nowhere else to go.
You're trying to
navigate a system
that isn't quite a system, um,
and that isn't funded
or configured in a way
that provides easy access
for you to get your children
the help that they need.
Maclayn: It was rough
and awkward for me
talking about
that kind of stuff.
Joe: He just begged us,
he wanted to go home.
Mary: Yeah.
Joe: At that time, being there
in that environment
just--just scared him to death.
We're scared to death.
Mary: Are they gonna take him
over to the psychiatric center?
Are they gonna send us home?
If they take him
therewhat is that?
Joe: We can't stay.
Mary: We can't stay.
He's 9.
Joe: So, the on-call doctor
that was coming in
said to Maclayn,
"If you have a plan of
"hurting yourself
at all, in any way,
"we have to
keep you to observe you
just to make sure
you don't."
And I think that's
when it was like
reality crashed on him,
you know, that's when he
turned into a 9-year-old.
He realized, "Oh, my gosh,
I can't stay
without my mom and dad."
Mary: So, we took him home
and they told us,
"Take away all the knives.
watch him very carefully."
And I don't think
we slept for months.
Disturbed: down with
the sickness ♪
Get updown with
the sickness ♪
Get updown
with the sickness ♪
Amethyst: I think that being
left alone with thoughts
right after a manic episode
can be pretty detrimental.
Among all of the chaos
that I was going through
and all the different emotions
that cycled through so quickly,
I didn't want to accept
that I didn't really have
any control over it.
So, I'd end up blaming myself.
I felt really lost.
But when I accepted that,
OK, I guess I am bipolar,
this is OK,
I had also realized
I'm not alone in this.
There are people
that are living for me
and I have all of my
friends and family
that I'm living for
♪
and I can make a difference
in other people's lives.
Do I have your
permission to read this?
Amethyst: So, yes, I do have
a reason to fight.
"At the young age
of 18,
"I attempted
to take my own life.
"I never felt that my
problems were a priority,
"so I never spoke up.
"Suffering in silence,
I felt
"l was running out
of options
"until one day
something clicked,
"that I would
one day rise above
"the ashes of my depression
and fight it.
"And I am forever humbled,
grateful, and blessed
that I was able to
overcome my demons."
[Cheering and applause]
Vinson: So, at rock bottom,
you have an epiphany.
You can course-correct
and go into this
completely different direction
in your life.
For people who are able
to make that turn,
you have to have
the understanding that
there's a problem
with what you're doing.
But the illness itself
can make it hard for you
to see it clearly.
♪
There were a couple
points where I would
look at myself and think,
"OK, I need to get better,"
but then I don't act on that
trying to get better.
Like, I'd convince myself that
I didn't have a mental illness,
that I was just overthinking
everything and being dumb.
It's like you're
screaming for help,
screaming for attention,
but you can't say straight up,
like, "I need help."
I was in denial
for a good 5 years
that I even had
a mental illness.
It's like a "flat-earther"
not wanting to believe
that the world is round.
Pete: Insight means
that you understand
that you may have
a mental illness
or you're not
thinking clearly.
It's hard to convince someone
who has no insight
that they have
a mental illness.
And so, we have to step in.
Alexis: I didn't really have
anyone to go to
after my suicide attempt.
I tried talking about it,
and my family did try,
but my mom, she was so worried
and scared and confused.
She was like,
"What's wrong with you?
Why would you ever, like,
want to do this?"
I was like, "I was gonna
kill myself
and you're asking me
what the heck I'm doing?"
And that was really hard.
Yaadieah: Whenever I called
my mom,
she would just get worried.
I felt bad that I was
worrying her so much.
I just didn't know
what else to do.
My dad knew I was doing
hard drugs.
Now my dad knew that
I was cutting.
But I couldn't talk to my
dad about it, because he was
so busy and tired
and didn't have time for me.
Morgan: When you feel like you
can't even go to your friends
or your parents,
because, yeah, at that age,
how are you ever gonna admit,
"I'm thinking of suicide.
"I can't see past tomorrow.
I want to cut myself"?
Like, how can you
say that out loud
and not feel like someone is
gonna judge you
or even put you
away in [laughs]
put you in that crazy
container, you know?
It's the number-one
reason, perhaps, why they
don't come to see a therapist
or to tell their parents
or to tell their pediatricians
or to tell anyone in their life.
Vinson: There's a way that
you may feel about a situation
being hopeless, as if
something can never change.
But talking to somebody else,
even though it may not fix
all the problems that
you're dealing with,
can still give you
an opportunity to have
a different perspective
that's not shaped
by the illness that is
impacting you.
Maybe if I had someone,
you know,
whose job it was
to care and listen,
maybe things would have
turned out differently.
Davidson: One of the things
that we do wrong,
we wait for the blatant
"Hi, I need help,"
as opposed to the subtle things
that are actually
asking for help.
♪
Samantha: When I started
getting really depressed,
I just felt like
I didn't feel good.
I didn't feel like me.
So, I wrote a note to my mom
and I, like, signed it,
you know, with my name
and I just hid it
under her pillow.
She handled it pretty well,
but she didn't really
know what to do,
and you just don't know
where to go from there.
Joe: For us as parents,
you know, what do you do
when you don't know what to do?
You Google it.
So, we started Googling
all this stuff,
which is--
which is horrible.
Mary: Terrible.
Erick: We don't fully understand
how to support this yet.
There were so many patterns
where we thought
we were helping.
And what we were doing was
really taking away her power.
Every time I try and fix
something for her,
she doesn't have to
fix it for herself.
Lydia: When I was
taking the pills,
afterwards, I definitely felt
a lot of shame.
It comes to a point where it
is definitely so clear that
it's self-medication, but I
couldn't admit that to myself.
So, I would just, like,
lay in bed all day
because I was so
depressed and angry.
So angry.
Alexis: I think the biggest
part is just acknowledging
to yourself that
"My emotions have been
really, really hard
to deal with lately."
And once you acknowledge that,
then you start taking
the steps that you need
in order to,
you know, feel better again.
Once I really started
looking at myself
and, like, looking at
how excessively
I was doing these things,
it wasn't normal.
It's not like this, like--
it's not, like, cute to, like,
be popping pills every day
and, like,
overdose this many times.
Makalynn: I was using
to deal with the symptoms
and the suicidal thoughts
that were popping back up,
and the drugs weren't
helping anymore, so, um,
I--I needed, I--I needed out
but I didn't know how to stop.
Kennedy: What's great about
hitting your bottom is that
you come to the realization
that that game
doesn't work for you anymore,
and if someone is there
who also sees that,
and who sticks with you
well, that's, uh,
that's powerful,
because you're no longer alone,
you know that they know,
and that's called intimacy.
Makalynn: I was 16.
My mom, she texted me.
Word for word,
she said, "Makalynn,
I know something's wrong.
You just have to tell me
so I can get you help."
And I texted her.
I said, "Mom, I'm getting high
and I don't know
what to do about it."
It takes a lot
to get to that point.
4 or 5 years
I was dealing with this,
trying to treat it myself,
trying to make sense
of it myself.
Insel: The delay in
getting help is staggering.
It turns out that
the delay for depression,
for bipolar illness,
is in years.
It's not in weeks or months.
And the reason for that
is often that
people don't understand that
care can be so effective--
that treatments work--and so,
they try to struggle
on their own.
Thompson: When people tell me
they don't have a problem,
I start off, just a smile.
I say, "I know.
We all been there.
I know."
Somehow, I gotta get
a conversation started.
So, I talk about me.
Next thing you know,
we're talking
to each other together.
Now we start comparing
and then pretty soon,
"Yeah, I might have a problem,
you know."
"Yeah, I might have one,
too, you know.
We just have one together."
That's when we come in
to work with them
to let them know
that they can be helped.
I kept telling my mother
I wanted to see a therapist,
and then it's
finding a therapist,
then it's finding a therapist
that takes your insurance.
We were told that
if we, um,
went to the emergency room,
that you would have
a faster response time
in seeing a psychiatrist.
Um, but it took us
4 months.
We were calling doctors,
we were calling nurses,
we were trying to find someone
to tell us what to do.
You've got problems of access,
the quality of care
isn't what it should be,
the cost is--is insurmountable.
I mean, there's just
this whole range
of--of difficulties.
Most of the people
who will benefit
from being in mental health care
are not actually in
the health care system
that we have.
I don't think that would
be true for cancer,
heart disease,
arthritis, or asthma.
Pete: Can you imagine
if you had a heart attack
and were told,
"Well, we gotta wait
until you're a little sicker"?
We do not have a system
that identifies
people's problems early on,
nor do we make it easy
for a person to get into
a mental health care system.
Woman: He started
asking questions.
Did I talk faster than usual?
Did I have any problems
in concentrating?
Had I had any visions
or heard sounds or voices
that other people probably
hadn't seen or heard?
I was on the receiving end
of a very thorough
psychiatric history
and examination.
The questions were familiar.
I had asked them of others
100 times.
I now found it unnerving
to have to answer them.
Dr. Kay Jamison.
♪
Xavier: They gave me, like,
this weird, like, testing.
I just had to answer questions,
how I felt about things.
I got diagnosed
with depression.
Ooh, yeah, funny.
Also, when they found out
that I was hyperactive,
that's kind of lame.
No, I'm not. [Laughs]
I say as I'm playin'
around with this--
is this a flashlight?
The only way for anyone to know
whether they have
an illness is,
are their abilities being
compromised by that illness?
Yeah, for sure,
anxiety played a role
in--in my grades dropping.
Are they
disabled in some way?
It physically pains me.
It feels so real.
Are they being kept from doing
what they would like to do?
I would go to school
and hate my life at school,
and then I would leave school
and, like,
hate my life going home.
Are they doing things
that they would not like
to have done?
I felt bad because I was
stealing my dad's medication,
my friends' medication, like,
I wasn't being a good friend.
Kennedy: These are questions
that, frankly,
people can often
answer for themselves
as easily as they could have
a psychiatrist or doctor,
uh, answer for them.
Vinson: You come to
a diagnosis by
asking a lot of questions,
making a lot of observations,
gaining people's trust
over time,
and also by being open
to the fact that
your first thought
about diagnosis may be wrong
and that it's an ongoing
assessment, uh, process.
♪
Narrator: Mental illness is
as old as civilization itself,
and humans have always
struggled to find ways
to understand and explain it.
♪
Almost 2,000 years ago,
a Greek physician named
Rufus of Ephesus
identified different forms
of melancholy
based on symptoms, such as
desire to isolate, mood swings,
and eating disorders.
In the Bhagavad Gita,
the sacred book of Hinduism,
the human mind is described as
a literal battlefield.
In 1621, the British
philosopher Robert Burton
published the 1,000-page book
"Anatomy of Melancholy,"
in which he identified
the symptoms of depression,
mania, and phobia.
♪
In 1952, in an attempt
to categorize and classify
mental illnesses,
the American
Psychiatric Association
published an official glossary
of mental disorders
for clinical use
called the Diagnostic
and Statistical Manual.
That first edition had
more than 100 diagnoses.
Today's DSM-5
lists hundreds more.
One of the first things
that my mom did
was to get me properly
diagnosed, um, with bipolar.
My brother, he's also bipolar.
My mother thought
I was bipolar at one point,
knowing that my cousin was.
I had an uncle that
had schizophrenia.
I grew up hearing stories
about him.
Yanerry: I kept my
hallucinations inside
for 10 years.
The first person I told was
a doctor because I felt like
a doctor would really
understand my symptoms
compared to
my family and friends.
He told me, "You're a high-
functioning schizophrenic.
And you have this
because of genetics."
And it's not just me
that goes through this.
I finally spoke to
my sister about it,
and she told me, "Hey,
I'm having those, too,"
like, "Hey, I'm seeing
shadows, too!"
I also found out that
a few of my cousins
and an aunt of mine
has schizophrenia.
Vinson: In thinking about
nature versus nurture,
what we've come
to understand, um,
is that it's not
an either/or at all.
It is "both, and."
What happens to you
as you're developing
during your early years
is going to
interplay with
those vulnerabilities
that you may have come
into the world with.
Angel: I recently got diagnosed
by my psychiatrist
with PTSD
from my past experiences.
I was diagnosed
with agoraphobia,
severe social anxiety,
generalized anxiety disorder,
and depression.
Part of me had thought
that it was
maybe just linked to
me being trans
and not being comfortable
in my body.
But I was diagnosed with
anorexia nervosa
and anxiety and depression.
Lydia: My first psychiatrist
just diagnosed me
with depression.
It didn't help me
explain to myself
why I was such a binge drinker,
a binge user,
and why I couldn't
control myself
when it came to
specific things.
Bipolar is a label
that was given to me
by psychiatrists.
Said schizoaffective,
some said bipolar,
some said major depression.
Ava: I was diagnosed
with depression.
And then a month ago,
they said I might have had,
like, bipolar disease
or something, so,
I don't know what
I actually have.
Dunning: Over time,
I will learn about you.
I've only met you for
60 minutes, 90 minutes,
whatever it may be.
So, we need to
work together so that
you have an accurate diagnosis.
One of the things
that, um, we know
leads to doctors getting
diagnoses wrong
is when they prematurely decide
they know what it is.
Julie: When I was age of 13,
they said it was depression.
♪
I was pretty--
pretty freaked out.
Pretty freaked out.
But it was also kind of like a
relief, too, at the same time.
You feel very confused
and you feel very lost
and you're not very sure
what's wrong,
and then you get an answer and
it's kind of really comforting.
Makalynn: When I was, like,
17 years old,
the doctor's like,
"You have bipolar disorder."
And describing the symptoms,
I was like, "OK,
that checks off," you know,
"I can check that box,
I can check that box,
this is me."
It's not a relief to know that
it's something that you're
gonna have to deal with
for the rest of your life,
but it's a relief to finally
make sense of it.
Some people, uh,
do derive some kind of solace
from saying,
"I can put a name on this.
"I can call this depression.
I can call this PTSD."
And I think there's value
in having those labels.
There's also a risk,
and the risk is thinking that
those labels explain something.
Someone once said to me
that if you tell me
that a person
has schizophrenia,
you've told me 5% of what
I want to know
about that person.
To just kind of
be reduced to nothing but,
you know, the two words
"bipolar disorder," and people
not understanding that
I'm a whole person.
I just sometimes
suffer from symptoms
of this mental illness.
Some people don't
want to have a label.
I don't like labels either,
but for our health care system
right now, I need to name it in
in some way so that it can be
paid for by
the insurance company.
Vinson: Diagnoses are helpful,
but it's important to point out
that they're not
the whole picture.
People's experiences
are all different.
You can have the same
diagnosis but have
really different
treatment plans,
really different medications
that you draw from
in order to
move in a different direction.
Newsreel Announcer: In this
dramatic fight to preserve
and protect
the nation's health,
modern medical practice enlists
the aid of medicines and drugs,
medicinal weapons to combat
man's greatest enemies.
Meds, man.
They're to help manage you.
They're not a cure-all.
Newsreel announcer: Use only
under professional direction.
Samantha: Medications are
a resource and a tool you use
to help better manage
your mental health.
Newsreel Announcer:
Daily, headlines tell us
of their results,
of lives saved by new drugs.
These developments
Amethyst: People like me
who have bipolar,
there's just
something inherently different
in their brain chemistry.
We do need medication because
it's way more intense
than just hormonal rage.
Insel: We have lots of
medications to choose from.
I think we have about 30
medicines for depression,
perhaps 20 for psychosis.
There is something like
7 or 8 mood stabilizers
for people with
bipolar illness.
Probably 4, 5, 6 medications
for attention deficit
hyperactivity.
So, that's quite a formulary,
and a lot of things
to choose from.
Maclayn: I do take medication,
and it's for anxiety,
I believe, and I feel
like that helps a lot.
Leah: "Let's try Zoloft."
That was the money
ticket right there.
That actually helped
me significantly.
I've never taken any before,
but I feel like
I put myself into that stigma
around taking medication--
"You take your meds today?"
Like, kids used to say that.
It doesn't mean you're bad,
it just means that
your brain needs a little
help sometimes, and that's OK.
Insel: They're powerful,
sometimes they're lifesavers,
and then there are many people
who don't seem to benefit.
We don't quite understand
why that is,
and we're left to
doing this empirically.
Trial and error.
I do take medication
for my anxiety and depression.
I take Lexapro, and, like,
since I've been taking it,
I feel huge.
Lexapro did nothing for me,
so, I was still just as
depressed and stuck
and hopeless.
Cymbalta is the one that's,
like, making my mood better
and actually gives me energy,
but I still get panic attacks.
I am on a medication for
depression, and I don't really
know if it's
helping me or not.
For some reason,
it doesn't help me
at night at all.
I usually just sit there
all night, and I'm just like
just tap, that's all I do.
They put me on a
antidepressant, which I think
may have started making
things a little bit worse.
Gabe: That pill in
the morning, like, I just
sit there, go
♪
like, everybody
used to tease me
when I had that pill at school.
The psychiatrist would
say, "OK, let's try this,
"this, and this, see how
it goes for a couple weeks.
If it doesn't work,
let me know."
Let's try another one.
And it has to match
with your other meds
that you're already taking,
so, it's complicated.
It was up to us
to figure out
whether it was
working or not.
These are
complicated disorders.
None of the medicines
we have are curative.
None of them are
perfectly matched
to the problem at hand.
All of them have side effects.
Samantha: I told
my doctors about
how it was making me
feel suicidal,
and they said,
"You just gotta wait."
♪
Anytime I could have
killed myself
and nobody would have known.
When I stopped taking
the meds, I stopped
feeling suicidal.
Dunning: We may have to try
another one, or another one,
so, to keep people in the game,
to keep people positive,
to keep people focused on
the outcome of something
that they really were ambivalent
about in the first place
is a challenge.
Makalynn: It was about
a year and a half of trying
11 different medications,
and it was
wreaking havoc on everything
in my life.
So, there was one point where
I just said, "No medication."
But I started
using drugs again.
I know now that
it is not an option.
No. I need to be medicated.
God, that sentence sounds
"I need to be medicated."
I--I--I know now that
medication is necessary.
I was born with
a chemical imbalance.
We take antibiotics
whenever we have a flu
or a strep throat.
I have to take
antipsychotic medication
because that is what helps me.
♪
Vinson: We do the best we can
based on what we have, right?
It's always a matter of
what's the benefit
that they're getting out of it,
and what are the side effects,
and which matters more?
And that is going to
be different
for different patients.
Morgan: As a 15-year-old,
I was on medications
that they would put
grown men on.
Andno, I was a zombie.
I was a zombie.
Any sort of desire
you have for anything
can be killed by
some of these meds.
You're kind of a shell of
the person that you were.
You look like a stereotypical
person with mental illness.
Pete: He did continue
to take the medication
and after a couple weeks,
he got better.
And then, of course,
he stopped taking it.
♪
And then he started
becoming delusional again.
Kevin had been walking around
the streets for 5 days.
He'd barely slept.
And I said, "Kevin, I will
pay you $50 a week
if you take your pills."
And he looked at me
and [chuckles],
he says, "Dad, I'm
not a prostitute."
So, then I tried duplicity.
Kevin: My father
crushed up some meds
and put them in my cereal.
Pete: He looked at that,
and he said,
"You're trying to poison me."
Kevin: I was very angry
with him after that happened.
But suddenly I found
myself hospitalized.
I remember waking up
and being in the psych ward
and being like,
"What am I doing here?"
♪
Pete: We'd end up in
the hospital, and he kept
doing this over and over
and over.
And this is what people say,
"Oh, wait until they hit
rock bottom."
Well, what is that?
Homeless? Is it dead?
Or imprisoned?
♪
Morgan: With my medications,
I was like, "Mom,
I'm not doing this anymore."
I took myself
off of them, cold.
I don't think it's a fix or
the answer to everything.
Each of our brains
is wired differently.
Sometimes they're just so
quick to write you a script.
And that's why I kind
of stopped going
to psychiatrists.
Vinson: People are often
surprised when they talk to me
as a psychiatrist because
I think medicine is helpful
but it's certainly
not the whole answer.
It's not just about having
the symptoms go away,
it's about is this person
engaging in
meaningful relationships?
Insel: It requires work.
It requires learning.
Learning a set of skills
to help you do things
that you're currently
not doing.
It requires therapy.
♪
♪
Man: There's an awful lot
of hate in the boy.
Hate that's spreading
over into his feelings
about everyone.
Woman: Well, he's
up against a lot at home.
That's just what I want
to hear more about.
Alexis: So, when I went
to therapy,
I expected, you know,
like, you know, like
the bed that they lay on,
the bed chair, you know,
you're just laying up there
and they ask you,
you know, "How does that feel?"
I didn't know how to talk.
So, she leaves
and she comes back
with beads and, like,
string and stuff,
and she's like, "OK, so,
just make a bracelet."
So, as I'm making the bracelet,
she's, like,
asking me questions.
I was actually talking,
and I didn't even notice it.
She figured that out for me.
After my parents
got divorced in third grade,
we started going
to a counselor.
And that really helped me
get all, like,
the stuff off my chest
I'd been wanting to say.
I think I don't
actually give my therapist
enough credit to how much
she actually helps me.
Insel: We have therapies.
We have rehabilitative help.
But the reality is it's not
that easy to find a specialist
to get help with
a mental illness,
even a serious mental illness.
There's so many things about
mental health care today
which are
fundamentally embarrassing
for us as a nation.
♪
Maclayn: The counselors
I had before, I felt like
they didn't really understand
what was going on,
and they didn't really
show much interest,
and that kind of made me
even more upset.
Ava: They always ask the same
questions, and I feel like
it's just not helping me.
Just wasting my time.
It seems like she
didn't really acknowledge
anything that I said, so,
it was a bit invalidating.
Gabe: Horrifying.
It was horrifying.
I was like, "Should I
be saying all this?"
"Yeah, no."
"Yeah, no.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no."
Just confusing.
They would give me,
like, a sheet, um,
that I would, like, bubble in
of how I was feeling,
but it kind of felt like I was
talking to a piece of paper
and not an actual therapist.
Justin: I had a doctor tell me
that I'd never work again,
that I'd never live a fully
functional life,
and that I was gonna have this
disease for the rest of my life.
And I had just met him
within 10 minutes.
Vinson: Mental health problems
require a certain
relationship that
may not be present.
If I am asleep
on an operating table
and the anesthesiologist has
a hard time relating to me,
it doesn't really matter--I'm
asleep on an operating table.
If I'm in a room with somebody
and I'm supposed to tell them
the most difficult thing
that's ever happened to me
in my life,
the relationship matters
in a different kind of way.
Pete: You know, of my son's
7 psychiatrists,
only two have bothered
to learn anything
but his name and his diagnosis.
So, we lined up a therapist,
supposedly the best therapist
in Northern Virginia
dealing with young men.
And my son took his chair
and he turned it around
and wouldn't talk to him.
So, after 3 sessions,
the guy says, "Look,
he's not gonna do anything,
I'm not gonna help him."
Xavier: First time
getting into a therapist
is kinda awkward.
Just weird.
You don't know them
and you're, like,
gonna talk to them about, like,
why you're sad.
He saw her for
a couple of months, said,
"This isn't for me."
Amira: He didn't want
anything to do with it.
Like, he just wanted to be
left to his own devices
and to just be able to be mad.
Vinson: People sometimes
are hesitant to talk about
their mental health concerns,
especially if you've had
adults or even kids who
respond to you in a way that
isn't supportive when
you've tried before.
Samantha: You gotta
find that right fit.
Sometimes they just suck for
you, and that's OK, you know?
Not every therapist
is gonna be the one.
Dunning:
Children and adolescents,
I will say to them, "I know
"that this is not even remotely
"on your top 10 places that
you want to be right now.
"Over time,
I will learn about you.
"I have only met you for
60 minutes, 90 minutes,
"whatever it may be.
"So, we need to work together
"because I know
that will help you.
I know it will."
That's hurting
his feelings,
and that's that
power, right?
Samantha: It was just talking
and trying to figure out
what exactly was wrong.
It was kinda like you put
pieces together of a puzzle
that we didn't really
know where to start.
♪
And it was a process,
but it felt good to finally,
like, put things together.
Yanerry: When I met
my current therapist,
she told me she had
the symptoms that I had.
It felt so comfortable to
speak to someone who actually
can see the things you see.
She actually listens
and gives me methods of ways
to deal with my symptoms.
Now I kind of just see it
as my normal
compared to
other people's normals.
Isabel: It was two years ago
that he voiced
needing help again
and, uh, I went back
and found him a therapist.
It changes over time,
slowly as you just get to,
like, know more of
their personality
and just how they do things
and, you know,
slowly it's like, you get
comfortable enough
and then just talk easier.
Dunning: There's just so much
life and love in having that
one person that's forever
in your corner that'll just
literally love on you.
It's just so joyful.
I say everyone should
be in therapy.
Alexis: My parents would go
to therapy with me, actually.
I was talking to my dad,
and I was telling him,
I was like, "Dad,
I just don't know
how to communicate and stuff."
He told me,
"I had a lot of emotions
that I didn't know
how to deal with, either."
He said, "When you're feeling
those overwhelming emotions,
"just go outside.
"Go on the trail.
"Go talk to the horses
if you need to,
"cause they're not
gonna judge you.
"If you want to cry so loud,
you could sit in the trees
and you can do that."
And that's what I did.
♪
We believe that
all things are living,
everything has a spirit,
everything has a teaching.
You could learn a lot
from nature for sure.
[Bird cawing]
Samantha: I was probably 14
or 15 when I went into
the crisis center
for the first time.
I just went in not willing
to work on myself.
I told them what
they wanted to hear.
I just got a break for
9 days from reality,
from the universe.
♪
When I went in
for the second time,
I was ready to put the work in.
I got a therapist, I saw her
all the time, twice a week,
and then I saw my
psychiatrist, my med doc,
probably twice a week.
Now for over the past year, I've
been in consistent therapy,
and I feel so good.
So good.
♪
Vinson: When you have some
cases that are more severe,
we think about
higher levels of care
to meet their level of symptoms
and their level of distress,
and that requires more intense
levels of intervention.
Ray: The blow-ups, the rages
kept happening more and more.
Mental support was
not enough for Gabe
here in our small community.
He needed a more
intense therapy.
And that's how
he ended up
at the therapeutic
centers that
he went to.
When I was going to this
mental hospital place,
I was like, "No, please
don't do this to me!"
Ray: Oof.
Darla: Was it hard. I mean
I couldn't even
talk about it
for probably
the first 3 months
without breaking down.
Yeah.
I mean, you just feel
like you lost your child,
that you--
Yeah, you sign
some papers,
and the hard part's
driving out of
the parking lot.
The ride home the first
time was horrible.
Gabe: First day, I got there
and got in a hold.
The hold is, like, when,
if you hit a staff or a kid,
they run up towards you
and wrap your hands.
Like, literally hold
you like this,
and they lay you down
and hold your feet
so you can't kick them,
and you just sit there
till you're calm.
This staff member held me
as tight as he could,
and I'm like, "Brah, chill."
Vinson: Inpatient psychiatry or
inpatient mental health
treatment
is given with
the idea that you're going to
help somebody get better
or, at the very least,
keep them safe
during a time when
there are reasons to be
really concerned about
their safety.
Darla: The facility
Gabe had went to,
the residential care,
they pretty much
took him back
to being an infant.
Feeding him, holding him,
rocking him,
carrying him around
in a backpack.
You know, and he was
9 years old.
But it really helped to
take him back, you know.
Gabe: I was like,
"I cannot do this anymore.
"This place is horrible.
I better get through this."
Ray: The therapeutic center
was 400 miles from here,
so, every other weekend,
we drove 800 miles.
We'd leave Friday afternoon
and we'd come home
Sunday night,
so, he knew that
we didn't abandon him.
Gabe: My mom and dad
used to hide notes
everywhere in my room,
and I'm like,
"These make me sad.
You shouldn't do this anymore,"
and that's exactly what
I said to them.
And they were like, "Just trying
to make you feel better."
Vinson: By its nature,
inpatient mental health
treatment
is very disruptive.
It takes you out of school,
it separates you
from your family,
it makes you sleep
in this strange bed,
and it can undermine some
things that are very basic,
like connection and autonomy,
while trying to keep
people safe.
[Door lock clicks]
Morgan: I thought after
I woke up from my overdose
that I could just go back home.
No.
I was sent away
to an inpatient
children's mental hospital,
psychiatric unit.
It felt strange being there,
knowing that you're
out of school
and in an actual hospital.
So, I begged my mom
to take me out of there.
One of the girls was like,
"You don't look
like you should be here,
you don't look like
you're depressed."
And that always
stuck with me because, like,
what do my looks have to do with
anything like how I'm feeling?
Yanerry: The first time
I went to the psych ward,
I was there to prevent
a suicide attempt.
It's kind of just like
the room you stay in
and you see a psychiatrist
and if you say you're feeling
sad, you stay another week.
♪
Lydia: It was October of 2018,
and I overdosed on Xanax
in school.
My parents told me,
"You're gonna be sent
to a residential facility
for 30 days,"
and I threw a fit.
I was, like, punching walls,
I was screaming and crying,
and then I was like, "I'm gonna
fake it till I make it."
I finally ended up, um
in a kind of desperation.
Nothing was working.
It seemed like
she was getting worse.
Lydia: From that residential,
I got "gooned,"
which is picked up
in the middle of the night,
and I got sent straight to
the wilderness.
♪
It's like a paid,
legal kidnapping.
It's--it's--[laughs]
it's terrible!
We had to hike
almost every day
with, like,
our huge packs on.
We slept on sleeping bags
on a tarp on the ground
under a plastic tarp.
♪
I was in the wilderness
for, like, 3, 4 months.
[Laughter, crying]
♪
Hi, sweetheart.
Erick: When she came out
of the wilderness,
she was radiant.
I think she had started
to do that work
of being OK in herself.
It was incredible to see.
I mean,
really, she came out
of the wilderness
♪
[Sniffles]
Wasn't even the old Lydia.
It was like this new Lydia.
And I felt it.
♪
Lydia: But right as I got back
into New York City,
I slipped right back into
the same old habits.
Kennedy: You pay attention
for a short period of time,
you think you're better,
you forget that this is
a chronic illness and that
you're never out of the woods.
Your only chance of staying
out of the woods
is to pay attention to this
and treat it kind of
one day at a time
in an ongoing way throughout
the rest of your life.
♪
Justin: They hospitalized me
and they started
giving me medication.
The doctor comes in, they give
me my pill, "How do you feel?"
"Well, people are out to
kill me, al-Qaida, the mafia."
I mean, you name it.
This goes on every day,
and all I know is that people
are leaving that
came in after me.
So, one day, I just lied.
I said, "Hey, man,
I feel great!"
They discharged me with a
month's supply of medication.
It wasn't until my
23rd birthday that I thought,
"You know, I feel OK.
Why do I have to
take these meds anymore?"
Makalynn: I was admitted to
a dual diagnosis facility
for adolescents.
They specialized in
mental health treatment
and substance abuse disorders.
I think it's very uncommon
to find somebody who has
just one form
of mental illness,
so I was lucky enough to have
substance use disorder
and bipolar disorder
at the same time.
Complete sarcasm there.
[Slide projector advancing]
But I think that I had
bipolar disorder first,
and then that
turned into using the drugs
to cover up the symptoms
of the bipolar disorder.
It was just, I mean,
a--a vicious--a vicious cycle.
The fact that addiction
is a mental illness
Hello! News flash!
You can't really
distinguish between the two.
♪
Lydia: Addiction is a disease.
It's not something
that you can control.
You can't choose to be
an addict, you can't choose
not to be an addict, it just--
it's in your genes.
Each time she would
come out of these--
these places
what next?
And then she falls down,
goes backwards,
it's all
the more painful.
And, that said,
of course she falls down.
Breaking out of
the cycle of addiction
I think it's one of the most
challenging things
anyone can ever do.
Lydia: I graduated
The Wilderness,
and then--ha ha!
I, um, relapsed.
I overdosed on Adderall,
and now I'm here.
[Slide projector advancing]
I had been, like,
thinking about,
"Oh, I need to change
this time,
"and this time
needs to be different.
What am I gonna do?
What am I gonna do?"
As a part of therapy, we do yoga
2 or 3 times a week.
♪
I thought the sound bath
was kind of cultish and weird
and just, like, creepy.
[Reverberating tone]
But when I let all
my expectations go,
I could really enjoy it
and just relax
[Reverberating tone]
and not focus
on the outside world.
[High-pitched tone]
[Light, tinkling tones]
I've heard of my friends who
have been in lockdown facilities
where it
just sounds miserable.
[Loud reverberating tone]
Morgan: When I was in my
freshman year of college,
I overdosed again and went to
a really scary one.
It kind of reminded me
of jail.
It was actually terrifying.
I was completely
institutionalized.
I was put into
a box, basically.
Our only real requirement
was to show up
for 3 meals a day.
That place got me away
from the drugs,
but, it was--
it was damaging.
Morgan: I just remember white,
a lot of white walls.
It was very
[Heavy door opens,
then closes]
So we'll have DBT skills
or recovery skills
or adventure therapy,
equine.
It depends on the day.
It's kind of amazing.
I never expected to feel better
by opening up to an animal.
So I just think, like, taking
chances and opening up
to people who you don't expect
will really help you
is a big takeaway
from equine.
I think that this place is
more effective because
there are little things
to look forward to.
[Loud reverberating tone]
Makalynn: We basically were
given some construction paper
and coloring pencils and a TV.
We would just color all day
and watch movies.
And it was terrible.
Yanerry: We couldn't even
watch cartoons.
It felt like I was
losing my mind in there.
[Lydia laughing]
Lydia: It does look
like a rich kid's facility!
But just because it's
fancy-schmancy
doesn't mean that, um
you have to be rich
to come here, you know?
Everybody from here comes
from different backgrounds.
My parents?
We just all talk to
each other openly.
♪
Makalynn: I was living in
a house with 13 other girls,
ages 12 to 17 years old,
so talking about, like, puberty
and emotions running,
and then you've got, you know,
add detoxing from drugs
on top of that.
Group therapy would turn into,
you know,
who was fighting
with who that week.
I was the
only teenager there.
Everyone looked at me as, like,
a little kid.
It's like, "What are you
doing here?"
Morgan: They had older kids,
14-, 15-year-olds
with 6-year-olds.
You can't get proper
care with that.
♪
Erick: She's been now to
6 of these centers.
And when a 15-year-old
spends 320 days in rehab,
there's no part of me that
thinks it's gonna be easy.
And the truth is, nobody
recovers until they own it,
and it has to be yours.
Lydia: You have
to trust yourself,
trust that the process has taken
you as far as it's going to,
and your next step is
to be on the outs.
Ahh!
Work on yourself
in a community.
This is just one
part in my story.
It's not gonna stop the rest of
my life from happening.
It's actually giving me life,
because I'm still alive
because of this place!
I want to fucking live.
I love being alive, dude!
Girl: Bye!
Lydia: I love living.
♪
Gabe: When I finally got home,
it felt like I was
adopted again!
Yeah, I was like,
"I can start over."
And then, like, a year later,
I'm, like, back
to the stuff I was.
Did the same exact thing,
said the same exact things.
Ray: We realized that
he needed more help.
Dunning: She'll
tell you to quit.
No, like, she tells me to
shut up or something,
and then I just
look at the TV,
what Dad's watching,
and I--
Dunning:
You are being told no.
Gabe: Kee is my therapist.
No.
Because I got mad at--
We talk about anything.
All right,
but you didn't--
Dunning: When kids
come to see me,
most often, they are mad,
because they will say,
"That's my mom,"
or, "That's my dad."
"They wanted me to come.
Why don't you see them?
‘Cause they're really the
ones that have the problem."
I say to that, "Absolutely,
I bet you they do.
"So why don't you kind of just
tell me how I can help you
"get to them, and then we'll all
convene, and we'll see
how we can work
some things out?"
Over the course
of the
Darla: Family therapy,
we will have that
with Kee every
once in a while.
When we do a family one,
it's pretty interesting
because it's--
It's--it's brutal.
It's--yeah, but we
did see things
through the kids' eyes.
Dunning: Family therapy
is crucial.
The power of that in holding
the mother or the father
accountable to the same
rules that you would
to the patient is profound.
Everyone has a piece
in the puzzle.
The other therapists
that we seen, uh,
it wasn't that
they didn't care.
It's justthey didn't
have the expertise.
Family therapy is
man, it's--it's hard to
get, actually.
In an ideal world,
we would have many more kids
in family therapy than
we have in individual therapy.
[Slide projector advancing]
Dunning: His biological mom,
she came into our session.
That was one of the things
that changed his life forever,
being empowered to say to your
biological mother and to ask her
why she hurt you in
the way that she did,
to have that opportunity in
a safe place, safe place,
in which to do that,
to find your words.
Gabe: She's good at
changing families' life.
My family life was like that,
and now it's like that.
[Slide projector advances]
Leah: We had a family therapy
session with my mother
and it was me,
my sister, and her,
and I had to tell her, you know,
I--I hated you.
I hated your guts.
And there were so many times
that I wished that you were dead
instead of
continuing to hurt me.
All the years and years and
years of built-up frustration
towards, you know,
the situation that she put me
and my family through, and it
all kind of came out at that
family therapy session.
And that was the first step
towards me forgiving her.
Are you crying?
Don't cry.
Of course.
I love you.
Julie: My relationship with
my daughter now versus then
is so amazing.
My relationship with
life itself now
is so amazing,
you know.
[Match strikes]
♪
[Man singing in Ojibwe]
♪
Alexis: I think it's so hard to
find an indigenous person
that hasn't dealt
with mental illness
or some sort of abuse.
♪
That's within my DNA.
I wasn't taught my Ojibwe
language because it was
literally beaten out of
my great-grandparents.
The things my ancestors went
through, it's shown through
alcohol abuse, addictions,
non-stable families,
toxic relationships.
It's everywhere.
♪
That's the burden that
indigenous youth deal with
every day.
You're just born into it.
Birthright.
♪
Makalynn: There is
a deeper stigma
for people with mental illness
who are minorities,
so they don't talk about it.
In society, we're already the
underdog, so to add another tier
of something that could
be viewed as a weakness
would just further complicate
life in general.
Girl:
Turn all around ♪
Vinson: There's a way that
things that are woven
into society become
background noise,
and so we pay attention to them
in the same way.
When we have things like
inequity and racism
and gender discrimination
and all of these things,
it's such a part
of how we're taught,
of how
things are framed to us,
of the language that is used.
We don't recognize it
because it's just part of
how we operate.
If one of my friends was, like,
really anxious and she was,
you know, upset and, like,
yelling at people or whatever
for her anxiety, people would
say, "Oh, like, she's having
an anxiety attack, that's
why she's doing that."
Whereas, if I experience
the same behaviors,
it would be, like,
"Oh, she's an angry Black girl.
She's just doing what
Black people do."
Makalynn: Whenever the person
of discussion has mental illness
and they are white,
we definitely focus on that
individual and what they have
gone through in life
that could attribute to that.
Vinson: People who are Black who
have a mental health problem,
there's a way that
it can be minimized, just like
you as a person are minimized.
It can be, um, met
with, uh
"othering" just as you
as a person
are met with "othering."
Yaadieah: I have to sort of
tone down my mental illness
not to make my
community look bad.
And I just feel like many
times Black people don't get
to be mentally ill because
just--their behaviors
are so picked apart.
So when you're Black,
the range of emotions
that you're allowed to
have in society are smaller.
The room for error you have
in society is narrower,
And so the range of
emotional expression
that other people enjoy,
you can't without things like
"angry Black woman"
or "angry Black man"
being sort of brought up.
You kept saying
"It's boy time."
Dunning: What
in our own thinking
would give us permission
to think for one second
that because we are brown,
because we're Black,
because we're Native,
or whatever, that we would
not still have
the same challenges?
Some people look
at Hispanics as, like,
loud and crazy
and full of drama,
and that kind of affected
my mental health a lot.
Dunning: In my practice,
Native Americans
in our community,
they're struggling,
and I will ask them,
"What don't I know?"
Alexis: A lot of kids
on the res,
they want to be indigenous,
they want to be Ojibwe, but then
you go somewhere else,
and it's like
completely frowned upon.
That's tough as a teen.
There's a lot of stigma,
there's a lot of stereotypes
against us.
You're just coming into life
and everyone's like,
"Yeah, you have to deal with
alcoholism, drug abuse,
poverty, the worst
of the worst."
When you tell a kid that,
how do you expect them to
succeed on a reservation
where you're not meant to
succeed at all?
It's exhausting. It really is.
It's exhausting.
Yaadieah: I just want to open
up the conversation more.
It's not just a disease for
rich, blonde, white girls.
It doesn't discriminate.
It affects everyone.
[Jail door slams]
Makalynn: I think that there
are far too many other issues
that society likes to focus
on with minorities
to talk about mental illness
at this point in time.
Vinson: The issue of race
and mental health
cannot be disentangled.
So much of what
makes people sick
and so much
of what makes people well
has nothing to do with their
medication or their therapy
or the mental
health care system.
It has to do with where they
live, work, play, learn, grow.
Black trans! Black trans!
Girl: "My eating disorder
cannot be separated
"from my queerness.
"With all these constraints
of what a nonbinary body
"is allowed to look like,
it should come as no surprise
"that trans youth and young
adults have significantly
higher rates of
eating disorders."
Woman: "When I was 19,
I had my first PTSD episode
"when I
experienced psychosis.
"And because I didn't have
language or money,
"receiving queer-affirming
mental health was impossible.
"I started drinking to cope
with my symptoms
"and spent 5 years oscillating
between stability
and keeping it together."
Billie: There's a lot of
nonbinary kids
that are depressed.
That's because of
the way that we're treated.
It's not a symptom of being
nonbinary, it's a symptom
of being marginalized
by a society
that doesn't accept us.
Dunning: I have had people
that are afraid
to get medical health care,
let alone mental health care,
because they were
seriously afraid
to go into a doctor's office
and be who they are.
How sad is that?
[Birds chirping]
Maclayn: If people
asked me if I'm gay,
"Yes, I am."
My parents kind of always
knew and therapy helped me
figure it out.
I told everyone that I was gay
and if they had any questions,
they--feel free to ask me.
I'm gonna have
an amazing life.
People love me
and care about me.
♪
Mary: You know, coming out
as a--as a gay child is hard.
You want him to--
to find love.
You want him to live
a happy life.
You want people to
accept him for who he is,
and, you know,
not only is he gay,
but he also struggles
with mental illness,
which is gonna be a long journey
as well for him.
When I first went into theater,
I told my parents
that I found my people.
I like acting because you can
express, like, your feelings
to other people and you
can make other people
smile and laugh.
[Cheering and applause]
Billie: Being nonbinary,
transgender, gay, LGBT,
what--whatever you identify as,
it has nothing to do
with mental illness.
Don't be afraid to express
yourself and be who you are.
Because, honestly, not as many
people are looking as you think.
It's scary putting yourself
out there because you're
setting yourself up for others
to judge you,
and that opens you up to
criticism,
but it also opens you up
to love.
Dunning: We all judge,
make no mistake,
You do. I do.
I could be judging
an adolescent, a child,
for something that they are
doing or that they aren't doing
or that they
should be doing.
But what don't I know?
What don't I know
about their life?
♪
Xavier: I actually don't
know anything about
my father's childhood,
but, um, yeah, I do know
he was in a war.
His dad had been recently
diagnosed
with post-traumatic
stress disorder.
You know, he served
in Iraqi Freedom.
And that could've possibly
affected the way he is,
or maybe something happened
to him when he was younger
that caused him to hit us
for seemingly no reason.
We all have stuff,
we all have struggles.
You can drive by a house
and it can look pristine
and no one knows what goes on
behind that front door.
But until they open that
door and let you in,
you don't see that
the inside of the door
is destroyed
and that the inside of
that room is a mess.
[Handcuffs click]
Insel: What can happen to people
with a serious mental illness
is that, just like a serious
cancer, it can metastasize.
It turns into disability.
It gets complicated
by substance abuse.
It creates a whole realm of
social problems,
including incarceration
at various times.
♪
Julie: Well, during that 10
years in my active addiction,
I did a lot of petty thefts,
trade goods for crack.
I've had my--my head
cracked open,
I've had guns pulled
to my head,
and got caught up in
a criminal justice system.
Leah: I actually got
arrested with her.
[Siren]
Yeah, so
we were both shoplifting,
and I had cocaine
in my purse at the time,
which was really stupid.
Who goes shoplifting
with cocaine?
But, you know,
I was dumb and young
and I didn't--
I wasn't thinking.
If I didn't get arrested,
maybe, you know,
that would be me.
Maybe I would be my mom.
Julie: I wanted to change,
I just didn't know how to do it.
So when I went into that store
to--to steal those two, um
curling irons that
I was gonna steal,
I wanted to get
caught that night.
So when the cops arrested me
and took me in,
that was the beginning
of my recovery,
that night
at Walgreen's. Ha!
Not all men and women in jail
are criminals.
A mental illness can put you
in a place where you have
no business being there.
What's going on with your mind
puts you in a criminal area.
♪
Justin: I stopped
taking the meds.
I relapsed on my symptoms, and
I was arrested in April 2007,
and I was booked in the Miami
Dade County jail on a felony.
I had a complete psychotic
breakdown in their cell.
And then, um, they transferred
me to the 9th floor,
which is dubbed
"the forgotten floor."
[Inmates screaming]
And there's just a whole
wing full of people screaming,
I mean, screaming at the top
of their lungs.
The corrections officers,
they start coming around,
and they tap on the glass
every 15 minutes.
And they go
[Knocks 3 times]
And they say,
"Show your face"
because they want to make sure
you're not gonna commit suicide.
That's 4 times an hour,
every hour, 96 times a day,
somebody is coming around,
smacking on this glass.
It was terrible.
I said, "Where am I?
Where the hell am I?"
♪
After about 6 weeks in jail,
somebody got me to sign up
for treatment.
Vinson: When it comes to
mental illness, the criminal
justice system
in the United States
is one that demonstrably
is not just.
Rather than the mental health
care system being in a position
to step up and provide
interventions for people,
they end up
falling into the system
that always has doors open and
is willing to take more people,
and that's
the criminal justice system.
Pete: People get stuck in this
cycle of constantly in and out
and in and out of jails,
prisons, or hospitals.
[Slide projector advances]
Kevin: When I was sick,
everything was black and white,
good versus evil.
It didn't feel like reality.
It felt like a fever
dream or something.
I thought I was
some sort of prophet
who had some sort of role
in surviving Armageddon.
Pete: One day, he slipped out of
the house, and he happened to go
toward a house of a former
friend of his, long ago moved.
Kevin: And to me, if I had
gotten in that house,
I could go to sleep, and then
when I woke up,
Armageddon would be over and
there would be peace on Earth.
So I took a potted plant and
I threw it through the window.
[Glass breaks]
Pete: And he went in and he
turned over the photographs
of the family because he thought
they were staring at him.
I had this notion that
I needed to be invisible,
And how do you become invisible?
You disrobe.
So I got completely naked,
and I'm walking around
in this stranger's house, and
then I have to cleanse myself
from sin because
the Armageddon's happening.
So I go up and I draw a bath,
and I cleanse myself.
I lay down in the bed,
and I fall asleep.
And suddenly these police dogs
come, and they jump on my arm
[Barking]
and then there's about
10 or 12 police officers
who surround me and pin me naked
to the ground,
and when they
put me in a paddywagon,
it started to set in
a little bit,
the reality of what
I had done.
It was humiliating.
You're physically as raw
and as open
as you could possibly be.
The owner had a gun.
My life was spared because
the day I broke in just happened
to be the day they
were on vacation.
Pete: And I got a call.
Kevin had been charged
with two felonies.
So we go to court
and we're told,
"You have to make a decision
right now.
Do you want to plead guilty
or not plead guilty?"
Complete strangers who have
no knowledge of who he is
are gonna make this decision in
a matter of 5 minutes,
and "This is my son!
"This is his future.
He's sick.
Why are you going to
ruin his life?"
I tried to get him help
and was told by the law, "No."
Now that same law wanted to
punish him for a crime
he committed when he was sick.
This is my child, and you're
telling me you're not gonna
give him help because you
don't think he needs it
and he's not dangerous enough.
How dare you?
We luckily delayed it, and then
the homeowner didn't show up
for the second hearing,
and we were able to get
two years of probation.
Do I see myself
as a criminal?
Um, I think it's hard for me
to say yes
because when
I was arrested,
I originally wanted to plead not
guilty by reason of insanity.
But I think the answer
is yes.
I do feel accountable,
and you just feel regret
and embarrassment.
Once something is done
that's wrong,
in your heart, you want
to fix it, but you can't.
Pete: The fortunate ones have
been able to get back
into the community and get
services and living well,
but the sickest of the sick have
been abandoned on our streets
and are locked in our
jails and prisons.
Insel: By treating this
like a criminal justice problem
instead of a health problem,
we've turned our hospitals
into prisons.
At the same time, we've
turned our prisons
into mental health
institutions.
One of the largest
mental health institutions
in the United States is
the Cook County Jail in Chicago.
There's something
surreal about that.
♪
[Brass band playing]
[Whistle blows]
Collin: We were affluent,
upper middle class.
We felt invincible.
♪
We were 15-year-old athletic
kids that were comfortable,
doing good in school,
we were OK.
We didn't--we didn't think
that this was possible.
We thought that we were
immune to stuff like this,
but it's not true.
This happens to anyone--
any way, shape, or form.
It doesn't matter.
And that came as
a big surprise, too,
for sure,
but only after the fact.
Everyone in our town
knows what happenednow,
and everyone was
affected by this.
Wednesday, February 7, 2018,
Nathan Bruno died by suicide.
♪
Collin: The last time I saw
Nathan was in lunch at school
the day before.
It was just normal Collin
and Nathan activities, really.
Nothing was different,
and that's what scares me.
Rick: I knew Nathan was off.
I had a few conversations
with him
about what may be
bothering him.
And I went through
a list of things.
Is it bullying?
Is it sex?
Is it drugs?
Is it peer pressure?
The only thing he said
to me was,
"Dad, I just feel like
kids have it harder nowadays."
Collin: It was
an emotional heart attack.
It was just like
my entire world exploded
in front of my face.
I didn't know what to
think anymore
about anything, about anyone.
It started with a prank made
towards a high school employee,
which Nathan took
full responsibility for,
although there were
influences from other kids.
Lucas: The football coach who
was getting prank-called by Nate
put pressure on
all the kids and said,
"You're not gonna play on my
team and you're not
"gonna participate if you talk
to this kid and associate
with this kid."
Nathan would sit down
at the lunch table,
and all the kids
at the lunch table
would get up and move away.
He felt like nobody was ever
gonna talk to him again.
Rick: At 15 years old, that can
have a profound effect
on your mental state.
Angel: The situation
that had happened,
I was getting blamed
for something
that I really didn't do,
And I blamed Nathan for that.
Last time I spoke to him,
I was texting him very angrily,
mad at him.
And doing so, I felt like I
played a part in him getting
to that breaking point where
he felt nothing and decided to
take that decision
to kill himself.
Rick: The last time I saw
Nathan, Nathan and I exchanged
some words about, you know,
how serious things
like this can be.
He was sitting on this couch
watching TV like he did
most evenings.
Angel: Nathan's house is right
on the way to the school.
And as we're all driving past,
everyone sees an ambulance
and a stretcher with a white--
white blanket over it.
He was just a joyful kid.
And he was hilarious!
So
I think Nathan
was the most charming,
most funny, most charismatic
kid I ever knew.
He knew how to brighten up any
room, no matter how dark it was.
Hey, watch this.
Watch me.
Lucas: The way Nathan was as
a person says a lot
about the nature of suicide.
It can be in anyone, and anybody
can have these thoughts
and feeling of being
alone and no one to talk to.
It felt like we got
hit with a wrecking ball
basically, in a way.
Everything for us changed.
Collin: It sent the school
into a spiral,
just out of control.
Boy: There was a couple of us
in gym class,
and we just like,
all started crying.
So I went to, uh, Guidance,
and they were kind of like,
"Uh, well, you have to
schedule a meeting."
The guidance counselors
are not trained in that field.
They didn't know what to do.
None of our teachers
knew what to do with us.
High school is one of the most
stressful things that someone
goes through in their life.
Anyone watching this that is
in high school right now
can attest to that.
There is so little help for
people struggling like this.
There is so little
counseling available,
especially in school.
Vinson: So school
counselors may have
specialized training when
it comes to education
and vocational issues,
they may not have it or even
have clinical licensure when
it comes to mental illness
or mental health disorders.
Owen: Right after Nathan,
I probably had like 25 kids
in my basement,
and we literally didn't leave
the basement for like 3 days.
Angel: We began to learn how
to help each other
in our darkest times.
We all really needed
each other at that point.
Angel: It was really the
beginning of us understanding
each other and talking
about our feelings.
We were just sort of
talking about different things
about Nathan's death
and different things around it,
and it sort of turned into
talking about mental health
as a whole
and educating ourselves
on everything about it.
Collin: We kind of said,
"Something's not right.
"You know, something
needs to be changed.
We can't watch this
happen to anyone else."
♪
Rick: His friends said,
"We want to do something
about what happened.
We want to make a difference
in the name of Nathan."
Collin: It's all about
speaking and talking about it.
I think that could have saved
Nathan's life,
and it could save anyone's life
that is feeling the same way.
And that's where
ESI came from.
Ava: Before the incident
with Nate, the school never
talked about
mental illness at all.
They never talked about
depression, mental illness,
and stuff like that.
Now we talk about what ways
you can do to help someone,
talking about coping skills
and red flags,
and it really helped me.
I've grown to know how
to help people now.
Girl: I started to be involved
with Every Student Initiative
because I was just really,
I guess, proud of what they
were doing and how they
respectfully were doing it.
I had a mental illness,
and I knew about it,
and I wanted to express it
and be in that
kind of space where I felt
safe to talk about it.
♪
Angel: I started to realize
after the grieving period
of Nathan that I needed to
talk to someone, I needed to
get right with myself.
So I started to
see a therapist.
It kind of was like a,
uh, epiphany in a way.
Collin: We also had
the idea for Nathan's Law.
The mission is to review,
revise, and create policies
and programs to improve social,
emotional support in schools
and communities.
A structured support
system in every school.
Collin: We brought it to the
State House the first time.
It didn't make it out
of the committee,
but that didn't stop us.
We know what can help
and what will help.
This law, we strongly believe,
can stop this
from ever happening again.
Reporter: This morning,
Governor Dan McKee signed
a recently approved
suicide prevention bill
at the second annual Be Great
for Nate Fundraising Gala.
Last night's event at
the Ochre Court in Newport
was in honor of Portsmouth
teenager Nathan Bruno
who was 15 years
Collin: This is the story of
a thousand little towns
just like Portsmouth.
Insel: There are a million
suicides every year worldwide.
For every suicide,
there are 11 victims.
One is the person who died,
and 10 are the other people
who will never be the same.
Rick: I believe it
takes such an extreme event
because it gets our attention,
but this isn't
the story I wanted.
Collin: I wish I could have
done this without
Nate dying by suicide.
But if Nathan didn't pass away,
someone else would have.
I wish I could have told
Nate he meant the world
to all of us,
and if he could see us now,
what we would have done
to stop what he did.
I wish I could have given
my best effort.
I could have
tried to stop this.
I could
have gotten him help
if I couldn't help him
myself.
That's what I would tell him.
And that's what I
would say to you.
There is always someone that
cares about you that much
that they will do
anything for you.
They will do anything
to make sure
that doesn't happen
to you, too.
[Thunder]
♪
Amethyst: I definitely think
mental illness is something
hiding in plain sight
because there are so many people
dealing with it.
It's definitely
a part of life.
People who go through this
kind of thing, they would
never wish it upon anybody.
It's just something that we
certainly can't help.
Not everybody has such
an accepting family as I do,
and not everybody lives
in an area where mental illness
is widely acknowledged
and accepted.
♪
Woman: Overall, the general
conversation about mental health
it's getting better,
but I don't think it's
addressed enough.
I think almost everybody I
know knows someone that has
either a family member,
a spouse, a child, a friend,
a coworker, somebody.
They may not personally
have mental illness,
but I guarantee that somebody
that they know does,
and humanizing it,
bringing it home,
makes it more real
to people.
Draiman: Our world is plagued
by an epidemic.
Amethyst: I was very excited
to see this concert,
because I think if everybody
could just see
how many people there are
that are going through these
things together
Draiman: Addiction
and depression
are incredibly
powerful demons.
Amethyst: then there would be
a lot more acceptance
Draiman: They are diseases.
Amethyst: once we realize
how big it is.
Draiman: Mental illnesses
they're no different
than cancer.
By a show of hands,
how many of you have struggled
with the demons of addiction
and depression yourself
or know someone that has?
[Crowd screaming]
Keep those hands up.
Now take a look
around this arena.
[Guitar playing softly]
You are not alone.
[Cheering]
Amethyst: Thousands
and thousands around me
that all felt similar things
to what I felt.
So it was really a moment of
realization of, "Wow,
I'm not alone in this."
I had realized at that moment
that there were people
I know that
go through this.
I definitely feel inspired
to go out and try to make
a difference in other
people's lives.
One person can just
get the word out and then
more people will just spread,
and it'll just all
I feel like eventually everybody
will be understanding
and loving of everybody else
for who they are.
♪
Thompson: The human body
needs light to perform.
When that light comes inside
your life,
now you're able to
do so many things.
It makes you think better,
it makes you see better,
so you do more things
in the light.
It's so important
to realize that
people do overcome having
a mental illness and they go on
to do spectacular things
in their lives.
[Slide projector advances]
Makalynn: I've been clean since
the day I went in treatment,
7 1/2 years now.
And that's because of
a support system.
My entire family,
they were there for me
and then getting--getting
involved in NA,
so a 12-step program
that created
a whole new family for me.
Samantha:
I'm seeing my therapist,
I'm seeing a psychiatrist,
I see my regular, um,
primary care physician.
They all kind of work together,
which is really nice.
I have a support team here,
but it took years to get.
[Slide projector advances]
Kevin: The fifth time
you get hospitalized,
nobody wants
anything to do with you.
My brother basically told me
that if you want to be
involved in your niece's life,
we don't want you to be
the uncle who we can't
trust around her.
For some reason,
that sunk in my head
and I got tired of
being that person.
For me, I know
it's utmost necessary
that I'm on medication.
Lydia: I found an AA sponsor,
and I found myself again.
Everything fell into place.
I feel like there is ground
underneath me and like I know
where I'm going, I know where
my future is heading,
and I feel good.
But it's still something that
I have to deal with every day.
Isabel: Looking at Xavier now,
he's still struggling,
but he has his moments
that are better,
having learned coping skills.
He's now able to, like,
"You know what?
I'm feeling depressed. I'm gonna
get out and do something else."
Xavier: When I'm skating,
I'm not, like,
overwhelmed by my situation.
I think I feel better.
I don't know.
Guess it gets to a point
where I'm like, "Oh, hey, look.
I guess I'm not sad,
but I still am."
I don't think
he's much different now.
I think he just knows
how to carry himself.
Take time to learn how
your sibling communicates,
because you can understand
what triggers them,
and it--it makes a--
a good, comfortable space
for them to want to,
like, grow and continue
to talk to you.
That's really important.
So, I like to
show up to skate.
I just wanted to be there
and, like, be around him
and, like, watch him shine.
♪
Morgan: After the storm's
the prettiest. It's true.
You're gonna get tossed around,
but that's what makes all
of us who we are.
I can't sit here and say
that I'd be talking about
any of this with you guys
if I hadn't gone through
the pain myself.
Justin: Don't hold onto
that resentment,
that pain, that fear.
Don't hold onto that
‘cause it makes you sick
and there's a whole life out
there just waiting for you.
Maclayn: I'm justme,
and I can't do
anything about that.
I justam who I am,
and that's, like,
the best gift
that I could be given.
I like the way I am, yes.
I agree that I do.
I am not bipolar disorder.
You know, I am not
mental illness.
Have a conversation
with yourself about it,
and that way it could help you
feel more comfortable
to speak to other people.
Reach out. Use your words.
Use--just say something.
I know that in the past when
I've heard other people
tell their stories, um, it makes
me feel more validated
to know that they've
also gone through this really
difficult thing in their lives,
and it's, like, reminder
that things
can get better.
So I hope my story
helps others.
Alexis: What you do today
affects 7 generations
ahead of you,
so you have to make sure
what you're doing
today is good.
Not only is trauma
embedded in my DNA,
but so is resilience,
so I know for a fact
that my ancestors and my elders,
they're rooting for me
and they want me to do good.
♪
So I'll share my story
over and over again.
I'll go through those emotions,
like, a million times
if it helps one person.
At the same time, in some
ways, it heals that little--
that little scar that's in me.
Kennedy:
At the end of the day,
the great equalizer
are these illnesses,
and when you share
about your common experience,
there is a bond in that,
a fellowship in that,
that people who find it
don't ever want to let go of it
because it's what they've
always been looking for.
They just didn't know they
were looking for it.
Kevin: I was the guy who
pushed the shopping carts
at Home Depot.
And then my case manager
came up to me, and she said,
"I got a job for you.
I want you to be
a Peer Support Specialist."
Suddenly, I was
given this job
because I had a mental illness,
because I had a criminal record.
Be a voice for people who
are going through
the similar struggle
as to what I went through.
was necessary
to go through them
to arrive
where I am now.
An incredibly important part
of the mental health workforce,
increasingly, is going to be
people with lived experience
who have recovered and who
want to share that experience
with other people to help
them recover.
Vinson: They're able to draw
from their lived experience
with mental illness
to identify a mission
of helping other people
who are in that place
that they were in,
and of helping those people
understand that that doesn't
have to be the way
that their story ends.
My name is Leah Reed.
I'm 27 years old,
and I'm a peer specialist
with the Felony Jail
Diversion Program in Miami Dade.
My name is Justin Volpe.
I'm currently 35 years old,
and I'm a certified
recovery peer specialist
at the Jail Diversion Program.
These past 12 years,
I've helped over 1,000 people
get out of jail
and get them linked
in the community
and help people recover.
I graduated with my
psychology degree
from UNC Charlotte.
I plan on either going
to college and becoming, say,
a social worker or getting
a degree in psychology
and coming back to
the community and helping out
kids in Portsmouth.
[Slide projector advances]
Makalynn: I think that my
interest in criminal justice
started with my dad being
incarcerated in and out
and then me learning that he
isn't just a bad guy.
He's not just an inmate.
He's a person who is struggling
with something, and our
penal system found it best
to incarcerate him rather than,
um, you know, order him
to a treatment center
for his addiction.
I'm a graduate student.
I'm getting my masters in
criminal justice right now,
and I want to work with
offender re-entry in some way.
♪
Justin: One candle can
light thousands of candles.
That's all we can do.
We can't do it for people,
but we can help guide them
and suggest what has worked
for me and thousands of others.
Kennedy: This is the public
health challenge of our time,
much more than in terms
of medical disability.
It's in terms of
lost relationships,
damaged communities,
tragic pain and suffering.
When is the suffering
going to stop?
Insel: The problem of
mental illness is everywhere.
We are in a crisis, and that
crisis has to do with
our inability to provide
the kind of care that people
with mental illness need
and to provide it in a way that
they can use at a time
when they can use it.
I think that
American society has
tremendous resources
at its disposal
and that our lack of progress
is less a matter of,
uh, resources
and more a matter of will.
It's not that we can't address
things in a meaningful way,
we just haven't chosen to.
Thompson: If you're
feeling hopeless and feeling
there's not a chance for you,
and everything is lost and gone,
I will tell you everything
is not over for you.
I will show you that, and
hopefully you can show me back,
and we can show each
other together
and work on our mental illness.
Because you can't go through
it alone because I have it.
So you're not lost,
because I have it.
You're not alone, because
I have it.
And you're talking to me,
sO now you have someone
that's the same as you
who's ready to go with you.
That's what I would tell you.
I will show you that
it can be done.
Lydia: I feel for you.
II really do.
I have been in your place
and I know how hard it is,
and I know it feels like
nobody understands and nobody--
nobody knows what you're going
through, but I do.
And I--it's a really hard place
to be at, and I understand.
Woman: Ooh ooh ooh ♪
Ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ♪
Ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ♪
Ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ♪
Kevin Earley: I been
in the back of a squad car ♪
Handcuffs diggin'
in my wrists, not far ♪
From feelin' suicidal ♪
My life up and down
like a seesaw ♪
Late at night,
I ask God for a response ♪
But it's like
a dropped call ♪
Or one placed on hold ♪
My heart pumps cold,
blood bold ♪
So much turmoil ♪
I want to curl up
into a ball ♪
Like, fuck the world
and write it all off ♪
Then I zone out,
alcohol numbs my spirit ♪
Tired as a weary soul
Hopin' that water is
what my theories hold ♪
I need miracles, not the
closed ears of conspiracies ♪
I'm lookin' in the mirrors
beyond appearances ♪
And this is what I see ♪
Woman: Ooh ooh ♪
Mmm, whoa oh ♪
Oh oh oh ohh ohhhhh ♪
Whoa oh oh ♪
Oh oh oh ohh ohhhhh ♪
Kevin: I been
in the mental hospital ♪
Lookin" at the judge,
like, "Drop the sentence" ♪
Parents crying,
asking for his forgiveness ♪
Face the verdict now,
I've been convicted ♪
I've been in the back
of a paddywagon ♪
Dragged out of my home,
kickin' and screamin' ♪
By policemen,
taken against my will ♪
Been fragile,
doctors prescribed pills ♪
Been in the mental hospital ♪
Talkin' to other patients
about life issues ♪
Met schizophrenics
in drug clinics ♪
Abusers who misuse,
suicide girls ♪
I fight demons, tryin' to stay
out of trouble ♪
9 to 5 stressful,
but that's survival ♪
A piece of the puzzle,
they tell me I'm crazy ♪
Maybe I'm crazy,
nobody understands ♪
So I talk to the planet,
my theories are abstract
Watching TV,
and I start hearing voices ♪
America telling me
it's all about the money ♪
But it sounds funny,
‘cause I know I got choices ♪
I been to
the mental hospital ♪
I been
to the mental hospital ♪
I been to
the mental hospital ♪
And if I'm crazy,
that's how the world made me ♪
I been to
the mental hospital ♪
Been to the mental hospital ♪
I been to
the mental hospital ♪
And if I'm crazy,
that's how the world made me ♪
And if I'm crazy, that's how
the world made me ♪
And if I'm crazy,
that's how the world made me ♪
And if I'm crazy, that's how
the world made me ♪
And if I'm crazy,
that's how the world made me ♪